1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and a method for creating a photo album by combining images with a template.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are software applications for consumer users and professional users (such as an operator working at a photo print shop) that achieve a function to implement, on a computer, a method to create a photo album, which involves applying image quality adjustment, edition and/or other processing, as necessary, on inputted image data obtained through photographing with a digital camera or by scanning a photographic film containing photographed images with a film scanner, and inserting processed images into a photo album template prepared in advance.
For example, a device for creating a photo album is known (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-026246). In this device, as the user selects a template for a photo album, selects an image to be placed in a layout frame of the selected template, and manually specifies a range of a main subject region in the selected image and a point of interest of the main subject, determination is made as to whether the main subject region fits in the layout frame. If it is determined that the main subject region fits in the layout frame, a trimming area is determined for the image so that the point of interest is positioned on a reference point set in advance in the layout frame, and then, the area is trimmed and the trimmed image is inserted in the layout frame to combine the image with the template.
The above described device requires the user to manually specify the main subject region and the point of interest, and these operations take time and trouble.
In the field of photo printing devices for photos of standard formats, such as ID photos, a device is known (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-270198) that extracts face contour information from a photographed image of a person, and the extracted face region is aligned with and scaled to a predetermined area (a layout frame) of a template selected by the user, to combine the extracted face region with the template and print out the composite image. According to this device, the image and the template can automatically be combined without requiring the user to manipulate the image to be combined.
The above device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-270198, however, handles only images with a front-oriented person's face having a fixed picture composition according to the purpose, such as ID photo, and this document does not describe or suggest a problem to be solved and means to solve the problem to automate the photo album creating method described in the above-identified Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-026246, or the like. In a case where a photo album is created, images to be combined with a template are not only those having fixed picture compositions, and includes images having various picture compositions with various vertical directions of the scenes and inclinations of the subjects. Further, the number of person contained in the image is not limited to one. Therefore, if such images are combined with a template using the above device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-270198, some images may be combined with the template with the subject therein being inclined, or the region of the image combined with the template may not contain all the subject persons in the image.